jon: so that's senator reid's view, what about the republican point of view? what do we know about that? and also i heard something about a vip phone call? >> reporter: that's right. we know the president of the united states and the speaker of the house, john boehner, had a phone call for about 15 minutes last night. speaker boehner described it as cordial, direct and we've heard that, essentially, you know, 15-minute conversation between the president that that gives them a lot of time to talk about some things. in public, though, republicans are sounding a little bit more frustrated in trying to force the president to step up. take a listen. >> he's got a responsibility to everyone to work out an agreement, and that means he's got to come up with something that can get through a republican house of representatives. so we're waiting on the president. we can still get there, but he's going to have to lead. >> reporter: so keep in mind there's a lot of tough talk in public, a lot of the important work is being done in private including private conversations, a